Fiction Affliction: April Releases in Science Fiction

Science fiction fans will find a quiet fourteen new releases this month, including new series additions from C.J. Cherryh, Ian Douglas, Ian Tregellis, and B.V. Larson, new series starts from Neve Maslakovic and Stacey Kade, and a handful of standalones. (Let’s hear it for standalones!)

2105, September: Intelligence Analyst Caine Riordan uncovers a conspiracy on Earth’s Moon and ends up involuntarily cryocelled for his troubles. Twelve years later, Riordan awakens to a changed world. Riordan is compelled to become an inadvertent agent of conspiracy himself. Riordan’s mission: travel to a newly settled world and investigate whether a primitive local species was once sentient. Arriving on site in the Delta Pavonis system, Caine discovers that the job he’s been given is anything but secret or safe. Earth is revealed to be the lynchpin planet in an impending struggle for interstellar dominance. Riordan must now convince the powers-that-be that the only way for humanity to survive as a free species is to face the perils directly, and to fight fire with fire.

Scientist Paul Carlson is summoned from his laboratory job to the remote Indonesian island of Flores to collect DNA samples from the ancient bones of a strange, new species of tool user unearthed by an archaeological dig. The questions the find raises seem to cast doubt on the very foundations of modern science. Before Paul can fully grapple with the implications of his find, the dig is violently shut down by paramilitaries. Paul flees with two of his friends. Back in America, Paul tries to resume the comfortable life he left behind. Paul begins to piece together a puzzle which seems to threaten the very fabric of society, but world’s governments and Martial Johnston, the eccentric billionaire who financed Paul’s dig, will stop at nothing to silence him.

It’s coming up on Cajeiri’s birthday. The boy has been promised he can have the young human children he knew from his voyage sent down from the space station for a two week stay. But there’s far a darker business going on in the background, a major split compromising the Assassins’ Guild, which furnishes security and law enforcement to the whole continent. Tabini’s consort’s own father has been barred from court, and may be involved in a new conspiracy against him. For safety reasons, Tabini wants Bren and Ilisidi to take charge of Cajeiri, and protect him and his young guests. It’s Bren’s responsibility to entertain the guests, keep the security problem secret, and let Cajeiri reestablish his controversial relationship with the only other children he’s ever met.

The planet Duisberg has been plunged into darkness and chaos by the collapse of the galactic republic. Duisberg remains in an uneasy balance between mud-brick civilization and bloodthirsty barbarism. The people of Duisberg have a god: Zentrum, a supercomputer from the ancient past. Zentrum has decided to avoid another collapse by preventing civilization from rising from where it is. Zentrum has a tool: every few centuries the barbarians sweep in from the desert, slaughtering the educated classes. Abel Dashian has received the spirit of Raj Whitehall, the most successful general in the history of the planet Bellevue, and of Center, the supercomputer which enabled Raj to defeat his planet’s barbarians. To save Duisberg, Abel must break the power of Zentrum.

When a professor’s time-travel lab is the scene of a deadly accident, the academic world and the future of St. Sunniva University get thrown into upheaval. As assistant to the dean of science, Julia Olsen is assigned to help Campus Security Chief Nate Kirkland examine this rare mishap, then make it quietly go away. But when the investigation points toward murder, Julia and Chief Kirkland find themselves caught in a deadly cover-up, one that strands them in ancient Pompeii on the eve of the eruption of the world’s most infamous volcano. With the help of their companions, a Shakespearean scholar and two grad students, Julia and the chief must outwit history itself and expose the school’s saboteur before it’s too late.

The memo said they’d get bonuses for submitting patents. Concealed in engineering jargon, Ryan McNear submits a patent for the soul disguised as a software algorithm and his best friend Foster Reed rewrites Genesis and calls it a “power generator.” A few years later, amid the fallout of a ruptured technology bubble, his career ruined and family shredded, a desperate Ryan discovers that a company headed by Foster is developing his patent. Willing to try anything to rebuild his life, Ryan stakes a legal claim to the patent. He soon discovers a sinister undercurrent in the venture. Racing against time and aided by a motley group of assistants, Ryan gets caught in a battle between hard science and fundamentalist religion that threatens his sanity, his freedom and his son.

Young Adult. 1. Never trust anyone. 2. Remember they are always searching. 3. Don’t get involved. 4. Keep your head down. 5. Don’t fall in love. Five simple rules. Ariane Tucker has followed them since the night she escaped from the genetics lab where she was created, the result of combining human and extraterrestrial DNA. Ariane’s survival, and that of her adoptive father, depends on her ability to blend in among the full-blooded humans, to hide in plain sight at her high school from those who seek to recover their lost “project.” When a prank at school goes awry, it puts her in the path of Zane Bradshaw, the police chief’s son and someone who sees too much. Ariane finds the attention frightening, and utterly intoxicating. Suddenly, nothing is simple anymore, especially not the rules.

Nineteen-year-old Alix Nico, code-named Scarlet, is a kick-ass superheroine with killer Mods and an attitude to match. She’s considered one of America’s top Levels, even though her last mission nearly precipitated World War III. So now Scarlet and her new partner, Darwin, have been sent to Greater Germany to help sow the seeds of anarchy and prevent Germany’s defection to Russia and China. But where Scarlet goes, chaos follows, and when her mission takes an unexpected turn, she and Darwin must go ever deeper into enemy territory. As Scarlet grapples with a troubling attraction to her new partner, explosive information comes to light about the German cloning program and one of its prisoners, a legendary American Level who just happens to be Scarlet’s father.

After their exodus from Earth, the last humans settled a remote planet, Nova Prime. When an alien force known as the Skrel descended, the United Rangers Corps valiantly resisted. Centuries passed without an attack. Many colonists believed that the resources devoted to maintaining their military strength would be better spent elsewhere. Trouble is coming to Nova Prime, and it has a taste for blood. Conner Raige is one of the Rangers’ most promising young cadets. Conner’s ancestors were on the front lines of humanity’s victory against the Skrel. When a deadly ground war breaks out, Conner’s up against an entirely different beast, this time, the Skrel have brought a secret weapon: ferocious killing machines designed to eliminate humanity from Nova Prime, and the universe.

An action-packed tale of humankind’s struggle to bring down an evil empire that spans the universe. Twenty years after the fragile truce with the Sh’daar, Koenig is now President of the USNA, and Gray is skipper of the CVS America, soon to be promoted to commander of the entire battle group, Koenig’s old position, and one which he might not be ready for. The truce with the alien Sh’daar is unraveling as many predicted, and Humankind still knows little about them, or what they are.

Raybould Marsh, one of “our” Britain’s best spies, has travelled to another Earth in a desperate attempt to save at least one timeline from the Cthulhu-like monsters who have been observing our species from space and have already destroyed Marsh’s timeline. In order to accomplish this, he must remove all traces of the supermen that were created by the Nazi war machine and caused the specters from outer space to notice our planet. His biggest challenge is the mad seer Greta, who has sent a version of herself to this timeline to thwart Marsh. Why would she stand in his way? Because she has seen that in all the timelines she dies and she is determined to stop that from happening, even if it means destroying most of humanity in the process. Marsh is the only man who can stop her.

When twentysomething Jacqueline Swanson goes missing in Las Vegas, supernatural crime investigator Quentin Draith is hired to investigate. Draith immerses himself in the dark corners of the city’s underworld, unveiling a string of secrets and bizarre deaths. The deeper he digs, the more otherworldly his assignment gets. Assassins, human and otherwise, put a target on Draith’s head. An old foe ignites a storm of mad science. A ravenous beast rampages through the city. The clues point Draith to Sin City’s infamous “Bone Triangle,” a neighborhood known for its dark happenings and disappearances. When Draith finds the daughter’s disappearance may be linked to an alien plot against the city, he goes all in to make a high-stakes play to save the city he loves.

When out-of-shape IT technician Roen woke up and started hearing voices in his head, he naturally assumed he was losing it. He wasn’t. He now has a passenger in his brain, an ancient alien life-form called Tao, whose race crash-landed on Earth before the first fish crawled out of the oceans. Now split into two opposing factions, the peace-loving, but under-represented Prophus, and the savage, powerful Genjix, the aliens have been in a state of civil war for centuries. Both sides are searching for a way off-planet, and the Genjix will sacrifice the entire human race, if that’s what it takes. Meanwhile, Roen is training to be the ultimate secret agent. Like that’s going to end well.

The Serene are an alien race. The Earth in 2025 is an ailing world, and the Serene an end to poverty and violence, but not everyone supports the seemingly benign invasion. There are forces out there who wish to return to the bad old days, and will stop at nothing to oppose the Serene. It’s 2025 and the world is riven by war, terrorist attacks, poverty and increasingly desperate demands for water, oil, and natural resources. The West and China confront each other over an inseparable ideological divide, each desperate to sustain their future. And then the Serene arrive, enigmatic aliens form Delta Pavonis V, and nothing will ever be the same again.

This list gets far more interesting if you include UK releases, particularly The Shining Girls (Lauren Beukes) and A Very British History: The Best of Paul McAuley. I know reprints aren't counted but I will remark that A. Bertram Chandler's Galactic Courier, the third volume of the projected six volume reprint set of the John Grimes stories, is also out in April.

I just noticed the links no longer go to B&N, but to the publishers. Is that just a preference? I'd love to have the bookstore links also so I can buy for Nook (yes I'm asking you to double your workload so I can be lazy, sorry).